


No Place for a Hero

by benrumo



Series: Minific Requests [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Grimdark, Implied Relationships, Sad, Vague relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-05
Updated: 2013-02-05
Packaged: 2017-11-28 06:28:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/671346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benrumo/pseuds/benrumo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of course there is something wrong with this fucking game. A game shouldn’t kill people. Not real people. Not real fucking people who you love and who didn’t have shit to do with any of this.</p>
<p>Your fingers tighten around the hilt of your shitty game-construct sword. Nothing turns out like it should. This game’s too real, and you’re no goddamn hero.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Place for a Hero

The signs have been getting steadily less subtle over the course of the past hour. You aren’t sure what’s happening, but it doesn’t take a Seer to figure that whatever it is, it isn’t good. There is something definitely wrong with the game. You can almost taste it in the air. It tastes like Warhead pissed directly on your tongue.

Of course there is something wrong with this fucking game. A game shouldn’t kill people. Not real people. Not real fucking people who you love and who didn’t have shit to do with any of this.

Your fingers tighten around the hilt of your shitty game-construct sword. Nothing turns out like it should. This game’s too real, and you’re no goddamn hero.

Something flashes green in the sky. You look up too late to catch it, but you’re sure it was there.

“Begin pestering gardenGnostic,” you tell your shades as you slip them back on your face. You’ve wasted enough time feeling sorry for yourself.

“Yo, Harley, what’s your status?” you say into the tiny mic. You’re thankful for perhaps the first time that none of you brought a video chat program into the game with you. You sound like shit. Tiny, squeaky shit.

You set off your Bro’s rocketboard (which you are trying damn hard not to think of as your inheriantance) without waiting for a reply. You don’t want to stay here any longer.

Skaia’s where it begins and ends. The monster that killed your Bro is just another carapace, no matter how powerful he is, and the battlefield is the best place to find him.

“Begin pestering ectoBiologist.”

“John,” you start, but you can’t figure out what to say next.

“Cease pestering ectoBiologist.”

The sour taste only intensifies the closer you get to Skaia. The air is practically electric with energy, and you can see an ominous black storm on the bright planet. You figure that’s the best place to head if you’re feeling suicidal and stupid.

“Begin pestering tentacleTherapist.”

The edges of the storm are irregular and angular. You’re no meteorologist, but you figure that’s no normal storm.

“Rose, where are you?”

Of course it’s not a fucking normal storm. Nothing about being alive here and now is right or normal.

“Rose, I’m about to do something incredibly stupid. Better stop me before I fuck up all your secret evil plans.”

The storm isn’t a storm, and the black clouds aren’t clouds. You skate through mile-long black thorns as you head towards the cyclone at the heart of the storm.

“Tell me you’re not off doing something stupid. Don’t you know that’s Egbert’s job?”

Neon green and purple flash across the broken battlefield. You see what looks like two crows flying together in the distance.

“I think I’m in the mood for some in depth psychoanalysis, Rose. Better stop whatever stupid thing you’re doing and come quick, because who knows how long this offer could last.”

You fly over a bloody castle tower. You can make out a pink scarf and a blue hooded dork among all the blood. You don’t let yourself think about what that means. You can’t.

“Rose, I would seriously like to talk to you for great length about my phobia or preoccupation or whatever with puppet dick. I would really enjoy a long session where you probed at the recesses of my psyche and talked about phallic imagery. Come on, Rose, I know you can’t resist some good phallic imagery.”

The crows aren’t crows anymore than the storm’s a storm, though one of the combatants has a pair of black wings and the other a trail of ebony thorns.

_“ROSE!”_

You turn back the clock. Your shitty, broken sword rewinds to a point where it was slightly less shitty. You slam it down with everything you’ve got, only to be repelled by an impenetrable tentacle from the monster himself.

You look away from the beast for just long enough to catch a glimpse of her face. She sent you a picture of herself long before the game and an eternity before her eyes went wide and black. You didn’t expect the first time you met to go anything like this. Nothing turns out like it should.

The voice that comes spilling out of her throat doesn’t sound like a noise any human should make. Her lips don’t even seem to move with the syllables, like a poorly animated puppet. But the look on her face erases any doubts you had. Rose is definitely in there.

You’re knocked off your skateboard in your distraction. You sommersault backwards. Your sword flies out of your hand and tumbles a thousand miles below in the blink of an eye. You reach out desperately for the board, for time, for anything. You grind your face against the rough surface of the board as you fall, but you catch it, just barely, by the wheel.

You don’t think about how close you just came to dying. You grab your shitty imitation katana out of your strife specibus and launch another attack. It’s all you can do.

You’re outmatched. You’re more than outmatched. You’re an ant in the middle of a fight between an eagle and a goddamn unbeatable flying dog monster. You can’t keep your footing. Your thin shoes have zero traction and each blow is harder to recover from.

Rose sends a volley of her own thorny tentacles at Jack, and for a moment you have an opening. Your sword strikes out almost on instinct. You put everything you’ve got into that forward thrust. You almost don’t believe it when the tip pierces through, like he’s just another monster.

And for a moment everything is still.

Then you notice his health bar, still 99% full.

“Shit.”

Jack turns, jerking your sword out of your hand, and roars. You can feel his breath. It’s warm. How can anything be this real?

The monster jerks his own black sword out of his chest, and you know in an instant that there’s no where you can run. You can’t move the board fast enough. Fall and die or stand and die. Either way, you’re dead.

You close your eyes and wait.

Something warm collides with your chest. You don’t understand at first. It’s hard to see surrounded by all this darkness.

Rose’s body starts to take on weight. You wrap your arms around her as best you can. The sword in her chest disappears in a flash of green, and blood starts dripping over your arms.

She looks up at you, and the black fades from her eyes. You want to ask her why, but you already know the answer.

“It’s over now, isn’t it?” you say instead. “It’s all over.”

“Yes. It does look that way.”

You don’t know what you were expecting, but you’re sure it wasn’t this.


End file.
